Bottom Line

Peloton has expanded its line of home fitness equipment with the Tread, and as you can imagine, it's not your typical treadmill. Equipped with an HD touch display, the Peloton Tread offers thousands of live and on-demand classes to motivate your runs. Starting at $4,295 (in addition to $39 per month for Peloton's subscription service), it's quite an investment. But whether you're an advanced runner or just starting out, the Tread gives you access to a plethora of modifiable workouts to target every part of the body—all in the comfort of your own home, on your time. If you love running and can handle the cost, the Peloton Tread is every bit as worthy of our Editors' Choice as the Peloton Bike.

Pricing

Peloton offers the Tread in a few different packages, all of which include a $300 delivery and setup fee, and a come with one-year warranty. If you don't want to pay upfront, Peloton offers the option to finance the treadmill over 24 months.

The Basics Package is the least expensive option, coming in at $4,295 (or $179 per month) for just the Tread itself. For $4,524 ($189 per month), the Essentials Package comes with one set of resistance bands, two pairs of free weights, and an exercise mat. With the $4,644 ($194 per month) Works Package, Peloton also includes a pair of custom JBL wireless earbuds and a glass water bottle in addition to the accessories that come with the Essentials. The Family Package is the most expensive option at $4,844 ($202 per month), and comes with one set of resistance bands, three pairs of free weights, an exercise mat, two pairs of wireless earbuds, two glass water bottles, and a chest strap heart rate monitor.

Regardless of which package you choose, you still have to pay an additional $39 per month for Peloton's subscription service to use the Tread (if you pay upfront, the first month is included in the cost). With the subscription, you get unlimited access to all of Peloton's live-streamed and on-demand classes filmed at Peloton's NY studio. It also gives you full access to the Peloton app for Android and iOS. If you don't want to buy the Tread, you also have the option of subscribing to just the app for $19.49 per month, which gives you access to on-demand classes to use with any standard treadmill instead.

Setup and Design

Before you even consider buying the Peloton Tread, make sure you have enough space for it. Its frame measures 6 by 3 by 6 feet (HWD) and, combined with the display, weighs a total of 455 pounds. At zero percent incline, standing on the treadmill puts you 11.5 inches above the ground.

Considering I live on the fourth floor of my apartment building in a tiny, two-bedroom unit with outdated infrastructure, I had the Tread delivered to my parents' house in the suburbs. The Peloton team makes setup a breeze. It took a little under an hour for them to put the Tread together, and they stuck around to answer my initial questions.

The Tread's sleek design is minimal but classy, and its carbon steel build feels sturdy. A roomy polycarbonate tray with two cup holders takes the place of the dashboard you find on most traditional treadmills. In addition to the two main handrails on either side, there's also a smaller one in front of the tray with a soft-touch finish. It houses the power, stop, and sleep buttons, and a removable safety key. To the right is the Free mode button that turns the Tread into a manual treadmill.

The right side is home to the speed knob (which goes up to 12.5mph), and the left side is home to the incline knob (up to 15 percent). The knobs are smooth and easy to handle, but knowing which way to spin them takes a bit of getting used to. If you want to bypass knobs entirely, you can customize shortcuts on the touch display.

The slat belt (the part of the treadmill you run on) is made of 59 individually mounted aluminum slats that are coated with rubber and roll on ball bearings, so the Tread feels super smooth under your feet. It's also a lot quieter than typical treadmills, no matter how fast you're going. Nylon-blend fabric wraps around the base of the machine and opens with a zipper on both sides to a space where you can store your mat, resistance bands, and heart rate monitor.

While the bottom half of the Peloton Tread doesn't look all that different from what you might find in your local gym, the 32-inch, 1080p touch display at the top definitely stands out. The display itself looks bright and sharp, and using it feels responsive and swift. At the top is a five-megapixel front-facing camera that you can use to video chat with friends participating in the same class. At the bottom is a 20-watt soundbar with a USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The speaker is crisp and clear, and I didn't need to set the volume loud to hear it well in a quiet room.

As for connectivity, the Tread includes Ethernet, Bluetooth, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and ANT+. If you're using Wi-Fi, I recommend making sure you place the Tread close to your router. I initially made the mistake of putting the Tread in the garage, far from the router, and classes would sometimes take a while to buffer.

Using the Peloton Tread

Starting up the Tread is simple—hold down the power button to wake the machine, then tap your profile on the touch display. The home screen automatically brings you to the Featured tab, which lists all of Peloton's most popular classes. Next to it is the Classes tab, which separates all on-demand classes based on the type of workout. This includes cycling, running, strength, yoga, walking, and more. Meanwhile, the Schedule tab neatly organizes all of the upcoming live classes. There's also a Programs tab, where you'll find Peloton's specific programs like Run to 5K or Total Body Strength. The Challenges tab allows you to join in on different monthly challenges with Peloton members, and compare your progress with others. Under the More tab, you can access your account information like subscriptions and preferences, and learn more about the instructors and Peloton merchandise. You can tap on your profile to see your total number of workouts, activity for the month, and recent achievements.

When looking for a class, you can narrow your search down based on preferences like music genre, instructor, level of difficulty, length of the class, and workout type. Using the search bar, you can also type in a specific artist that you want to listen to and the app will populate all of the classes that include the artist's music. When you tap on a specific on-demand class, you have the option to preview the workout and check out the playlist.

I mostly chose classes based on the instructor. While all of them are great and highly motivational, I found that certain instructors' teaching styles are easier to follow than others.

The Tread also has integration with the Fitbit and Strava fitness apps. I linked my Fitbit account and all of my workouts automatically synced to my Fitbit profile after I was done.

For more on the types of classes Peloton offers and how they work, check out our review of the Peloton Bike.

Test Run

Peloton streams up to eight live Tread classes each day. While I took a few to get a feel for the experience, I ultimately prefer the on-demand ones. I like the freedom of hopping on the treadmill when I want rather than planning my schedule around a specific class. Regardless, each class provides a similar experience.

On the display you see information like energy output, distance, average pace, calories, and elevation, along with your speed and incline. At the top, you can also see how much time has elapsed. You have the choice of swiping away any metrics or information you don't want to see while taking the class.

For extra motivation, there's a leaderboard on the right of the display that shows your ranking in real-time compared with everyone else taking the class. During live classes, the board feels a little more competitive, since there are lots of people who have joined in. The instructors will also call out certain people who are doing really well (even those participating remotely). But if you're taking an on-demand class, it tends to be a much smaller group and doesn't feel as intense.

As mentioned earlier, music plays a huge role in workouts. In addition to using it as a way to find specific classes you want to take, it's also a way instructors strategize the workouts. During runs, instructors will use certain parts of the song to indicate when you should speed up or slow down. For example, the instructor will have you increase your speed or your incline when you hear a specific lyric. Other times, when the chorus hits you're prompted to run between a speed of 5.0 and 6.0 and then decrease it to 3.0 or 4.0 once the chorus ends.

Even though Peloton instructors encourage you to modify workouts however you'd like, I preferred taking beginner classes. I work out about three times a week regularly, but having to run at a speed of 5.0 to 7.0mph during an intermediate class for long periods of time left me feeling far more drained than my regular routine.

Since Peloton's subscription service offers access to all of its classes, I created a schedule where I worked on different parts of my body each day. Some days I did a five-minute pre-run warm-up followed by a 20 minute HIIT (high-intensity interval training) run. Other days I did a thirty-minute boot camp that splits the time between cardio on the Tread and a core workout on the mat. Sometimes after a run, I'd also take a ten-minute class to tone my arms and shoulders or work on glutes and legs using the weights.

There were some days where I warmed up on my own or wanted to use the treadmill without taking a class. The Tread has a Just Run mode that simply tracks your stats while you run. I really enjoy Scenic Run mode, which virtually places you along a picturesque route of your choice, like a 15-minute beach run or a 20-minute run on a trail in Switzerland. The large display makes for an immersive experience.

Live vs. On-Demand Classes

I took a running class at Peloton's Manhattan studio to see how the experience differs from following along at home. It's safe to say the momentum and motivation of a live class can't be replicated, and I definitely pushed myself way harder with people around me.

But taking classes at the studio isn't nearly as convenient as waking up in your pajamas and deciding to go for a run. With the Tread at home, I was able to squeeze in quick workouts on days I didn't have time to go to the studio or the gym. I was also far more confident to try tougher classes knowing I was the only one in the room.

Conclusions

There's no denying the Peloton Tread is expensive—it's really the only major complaint we have about it. But the combination of motivating instructors, good music, and sheer convenience had me looking forward to classes in a way that I don't typically associate with going to the gym. So while it is indeed pricey, it also delivers on its promises to bring empowering on-demand workouts into your home, and earns our Editors' Choice.

About the Author

Victoria Song is an analyst on the Hardware team at PCMag. Since graduating from Temple University’s Japan Campus in 2010, she's been found reporting and editing in every corner of the newsroom at The ACCJ Journal, The Japan News, and New York bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun. In her spare time, she bankrupts herself going to theater, buying expansions to board games, and cleaning out the stacks at The Strand. Someday, she hopes Liverpool FC will win the league, but she isn’t holding her breath.